Sin/BD/RS

I am going for the full 51 points into Assassin to get Serpent Strike. I chose to put 15 points into Bladedancer to get the 15% increase to Dexterity, 50% increase damage to auto attacks and 5% increase to hit chance (also get Combat Pose buff along with a few other cool things that may come in handy). As far as Riftstalker just needed a third tree, plus having the planar shift is fun and could be useful.

I only have experience up to level 30. In beta I leveled as Marks / Bard / Ranger and I believe that is a great build. Although I have recently discovered my joy of meleeing. And I think Assassin has the potential to out damage marks. I will have to get a parser to actually do some tests. With that said, here are the builds I am planning on using.

Level 50 PVE pure dps build. (Assuming you have a bard in your raid).http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...RsxsfqdbR.V0xM
You can switch out 3 points from Ranger in order to get Serpent Strike in the Assassin tree, which is probably more valuable. You would also lose 46AP from Predatory Instincts though, and 3% crit.

This is assuming that Assassin is the best dps. If not, then you can sub it for Marksman.

My leveling spec (level 20)http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0McMN.Vfzo.GAo
Bard for heals and motifs, ranger for pet and quick shot for pulling, Assassin for dps. Again though, Marksman and Assassin are a tossup. Unless someone has some conclusive data as to which pulls more dps. Both are viable in my opinion. Marks is great because of the speed bonus, although its fairly easy to mount right when you get out of combat. I havn't tested Assassin much, but its really fun so far, and seems like good dps.

If anyone has actually tested Marks vs Assassin raw dps let me know. Although that does not imply that the soul with more dps is better. Both have great utility.

Although recently I have subbed Marks for Assassin because I just want to melee for a while, and I think the damage is comparable to MM if not better. This is my current level 20 build. You can sub Keen Eye for something else if you prefer damage, but I like having max range.http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0McNM.Vfzo..GAo

Testing needs to be done to determine the actual potential dps of each spec. Utility is a different story however. Each spec has its own utility abilities. Here is a rough breakdown of each soul, and what you get with this spec.

General Talent bonuses
5% crit, 15% increased damage and you take 15% less damage for 15 seconds after opener (cloak and dagger)

Rotation
This is why I love this spec. You have all the great bard benefits such as cadence and Motifs if you need heals. (you also get the regen motif). So you can start out with Motifs up, then stealth. Put expose (doesn't take you out of stealth). Open with asassinate (2cp) > Puncture (2cp) > Savage Strike (1cp) > Final blow > Power Chord > Savage Strike > Savage Strike > Power Chord > Final Blow > Puncture > Power Chord etc etc. Cadence if you need heals, or for another quick 5 point generator. Then you have your pet from Ranger, and Quick shot in case you just want to tag or pull.

I start off with Swift Shot (1cp) > Empowered Shot (2cp) > Power Chord (2cp) > Hasted Shot (or Deadeye Shot if you can) > Cadence > Power Chord > Repeat. You can substitute cadence for Swift Shots. Its situational. Looking at this spec, you have the bonus of getting to mobs quicker, although mounting is very fast in this game as well. You have sprint and the knockback for utility

Overall, i'm undecided at this point, although I prefer Assassin. Hopefully this comparison will help you, as each soul has its benefits. I believe that both specs are viable though.

I am going for the full 51 points into Assassin to get Serpent Strike. I chose to put 15 points into Bladedancer to get the 15% increase to Dexterity, 50% increase damage to auto attacks and 5% increase to hit chance (also get Combat Pose buff along with a few other cool things that may come in handy). As far as Riftstalker just needed a third tree, plus having the planar shift is fun and could be useful.

I'll probably go a similar route but Nightblade has some nice early skills that buffs your CP builders and finishers damage. Worth checking out if you have some points to spare. But then again if you had points to spare I'd imagine you would have put them in the AP boosting RS talent. I do love Plane Shift... a bit too much, like a habit.

Although recently I have subbed Marks for Assassin because I just want to melee for a while, and I think the damage is comparable to MM if not better. This is my current level 20 build. You can sub Keen Eye for something else if you prefer damage, but I like having max range.http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0McNM.Vfzo..GAo

Testing needs to be done to determine the actual potential dps of each spec. Utility is a different story however. Each spec has its own utility abilities. Here is a rough breakdown of each soul, and what you get with this spec.

General Talent bonuses
5% crit, 15% increased damage and you take 15% less damage for 15 seconds after opener (cloak and dagger)

Rotation
This is why I love this spec. You have all the great bard benefits such as cadence and Motifs if you need heals. (you also get the regen motif). So you can start out with Motifs up, then stealth. Put expose (doesn't take you out of stealth). Open with asassinate (2cp) > Puncture (2cp) > Savage Strike (1cp) > Final blow > Power Chord > Savage Strike > Savage Strike > Power Chord > Final Blow > Puncture > Power Chord etc etc. Cadence if you need heals, or for another quick 5 point generator. Then you have your pet from Ranger, and Quick shot in case you just want to tag or pull.

I start off with Swift Shot (1cp) > Empowered Shot (2cp) > Power Chord (2cp) > Hasted Shot (or Deadeye Shot if you can) > Cadence > Power Chord > Repeat. You can substitute cadence for Swift Shots. Its situational. Looking at this spec, you have the bonus of getting to mobs quicker, although mounting is very fast in this game as well. You have sprint and the knockback for utility

Overall, i'm undecided at this point, although I prefer Assassin. Hopefully this comparison will help you, as each soul has its benefits. I believe that both specs are viable though.

as an assin you will want to open with jagged strike not assasinate(for pve) and also it should be talented for longer duration extra combo point and 25% crit. i would not take bard as a secondary your best bets are probably nightblade and bladedancer.

as an assin you will want to open with jagged strike not assasinate(for pve) and also it should be talented for longer duration extra combo point and 25% crit. i would not take bard as a secondary your best bets are probably nightblade and bladedancer.

Thanks for the information Shinovar! That first build looks really solid, and you're right, I should be using my dot openers and finishers on bosses instead of Assassinate. I'm lvl 34 now so I will be respeccing to this, although I just got a new bow so I really want to go Marks again. I'm biased towards Assassin DPS now though. Have you tried Marks or Nightblade lately? Wondering how their PVE dps compares with the right spec and rotations.

Haven't done any tests and haven't really played nightblade all that much, so i'm not all sure how effective Dusk to Dawn is so i decided not to take it. And not sure if Puncture is really going to be necessary in the build, but it gives 2 combo points and is a bleed so extra damage. Coming from an Enhancement shaman, I could really see myself playing this soul at 50.

Build's going in too many directions, you're not synergizing, you're splitting your damage. Nightblades don't do much physical, it's mostly elemental damage. Poison Malice is worthless, you're not using poisons. I'm not sure Fiery Chains or Weapon Flare even have a place in a non-AOE rotation....
Hard to say whether or not puncture is worth it, I need to spend time on a training dummy, but I think this is a more optimal build. http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M....iIxMhqgMoc.Vo

Leaves a couple points free, you could drop Puncture for another point on Murderous Intent. Enkindle was skipped assuming you're not running fiery chains or weapon flare, I like Twilight Force and Dusk to Dawn myself but they're both optional. Ranger gets you 5% crit chance and Predatory Instincts for 46 attack power. When you hit the point that 15% more attack power is worth more than 46 + 5% crit, you can certainly switch back to Riftstalker, but at that point you almost want to try and stack dex on your gear and go Sab for 15% more dex. Smoldering Blades/Hellfire Blades as weapon enchants. Dark Malady/Fiery Spike/Fiery Spike/Primal Strike/Blazing Strike to get your 3stack of fiery spikes, Ebon Fury, Dusk Strikex3, Scourge of Darkness, Dusk Strikex3, Blazing Strike, Dusk Strikex2, Blazing Strike.

I've yet to come across anyone who's posted a specific build that should really just dominate all other rogue dps builds for PvE purposes, so far I've been using Sin/Night/Bladedancer, Night being main, (17/43/6) i've been able to pull ~600 dps with a lot of blues + a few epics but i've got 2x epic T1 weapons, can anyone enlighten me about a superior dps build for PvE dungeons/raids exclusively, including rotation etc.. doesn't matter if it's a ranged or melee build.

Despite the well written article, trion has done very little to balance the dps of the rogue specs, in greenscale i can pull 900 dps on my sabo, and about 600 on my sin, and trust me i've tried just about every dps combo you can think of. Blending classes is 1 thing, gimping 1 soul is another.

have been running this spec recently for pve: uses most of the assasin skills for bleeds/poison but all attacks from bladedancer tree.
i found that going all in assasin generally leaves you energy starved for most boss fights. so i was trying to alleviate this as well as keep damage high.
what my preliminary spec is so far:http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...i0A0Roohbz.V0x

this also gives acess to a silence which comes in handy.

one point will probably come out of flash of steel or dancing steel if the need for 3/3 combat efficiency is there. (i like the gap closer for certain fights, and the aoe for certain fights however)
basic rotation is a macro for the regular attacks:
/cast precision strike
/cast quick strike
/cast keen strike
then banefull touch finisher, rebuild, dauntless strike finisher then just deadly's until you need to refresh the buff ones.

Despite the well written article, trion has done very little to balance the dps of the rogue specs, in greenscale i can pull 900 dps on my sabo, and about 600 on my sin, and trust me i've tried just about every dps combo you can think of. Blending classes is 1 thing, gimping 1 soul is another.

i do hope they do something i dont really want to be sabo altho they do do alot of damage right now, taking that into account i'd rather be a warrior dps currently as their still 2x our best. here's wishing they make rogues stronger.

i do hope they do something i dont really want to be sabo altho they do do alot of damage right now, taking that into account i'd rather be a warrior dps currently as their still 2x our best. here's wishing they make rogues stronger.

There have been a couple Trion posters/devs who have said they're aware of warrior DPS being too high, largely because of bugged talents (Hello bugged 99% armor penetration with 1 point in Para) so they won't be like that for much longer hopefully.

I do agree that it would be nice to have more options for competitive DPS builds as a rogue though. Sab builds have parsed higher for me on dummies and in instances than any of the ~10 or so other builds I've tried. Rather than Sab DPS being nerfed (as it appears it's going to be) I'd rather see other rogue and mage specs improved a bit to be comparable, as well as the warrior changes putting them into the same neighborhood.

Shouryuuken, I moved your thread to the Melee DPS as a Rogue thread. The reason for this is that the Soul Library has a very defined structure as to where posts go- separate threads are devoted to already defined builds only so that they may be rated. The general Discussion thread is where your question should go if you would like to keep it in the Library. If you would like to maintain a separate thread with the specific subject line you can also post your question in the General Discussion forum.

Tried out a few builds yesterday with the 1.1 changes, and 32sab/20asn/14nb still seems to be the highest single target melee DPS for rogues. I averaged 650 over a few five minute parses against the boss dummy with t1/t2 gear and still using a 26 dps t1 epic weapon mainhand.

The one spec I am not sure about is 34nb 32asn. I just haven't spent enough time with it to be comfortable with managing the various cooldowns and timers, so hopefully with a few more days of playing I can decide one way or another.